Welcome to a New School Year

Dear Parents,

I am so excited to be starting a new school year at Kelly Elementary.  It has been so refreshing and so exciting to get to know some of you and also to get to know your children.  This blog is dedicated to you throughout the school year.  I will be updating it each month with activities that we have done in the classroom.  I hope you enjoy. :)




If you have not been in the classroom yet this year, here are a few before and after pictures to let you know what your child's classroom looked like before and after I got done decorating.



Here is a view of the Classroom Library area.

 

 

Here is the Classroom Library after I decorated. The children love to work in this area.

 

 

Here is a view of the math bulletin board, classroom door and mailbox area.

 

Here is what it looks like now.  (Close up of the children's mailboxes.)

 

Our first day of school we made Jitter Juice

and the students gave it a thumbs up.

 

A couple of weeks later after routines had been established, we began our unit on Monarch Butterflies.  It was such a fun experience and we had 11 Monarch Butterflies emerge from chrysalises this year.  Here are a few pictures of our experience with the butterflies.

One of our caterpillars decided to make his chrysalis on one of our reading baskets.

   A butterfly emerging from the chrysalis.

We let the butterflies go into the Wichita sky but one decided that he liked the flower bush beside the school.

Here are two of our students experiencing the butterfly on their skin. It was such a few unit.  We will be finished up this unit with making a butterfly that will migrate to Mexico and children in Mexico will watch over it and send it back next spring.  It is an exciting project.

I am very excited to meet and visit with each of you about your child's progress in second grade.  Remember, parent-teacher conferences are coming up October 16, 17 & 18.  Please plan to attend.  I look forward to it.

Until Next Time,

          Mrs. Flickinger

Sunday Smorgasbord

The sound of rain falling from the sky is so peaceful. I love sitting out on my front porch listening to the music of the rain.

Don't you love this picture? Too Cute! I had to add it.

Today I am linking up for the first time with Fabulous in First for her Sunday Smorgasbord. (All things random)

 

#1

Yesterday I gave myself a treat and I went and had my nails done. I got overlays on my fingernails and I had a pedicure on my toes. It felt fantastic. I had Hana use one of the colors of my classroom and put chevron stripes on them. I think they turned out very cute.

 

I just hope it last until the first day of school which is in 9 days.

#2
I finally finished my dining room chairs. It feels so good to have these redone.

This is my old dining room chair seats.  Very UGLY!! 



 Here are my new and improved dining room chair seats. Love how they turned out.

#3

I was inspired by a Pinterest post about making a READ sign. Here is how mine turned out. It really fits my decor in my classroom. If you would like to see how I did this. Click on the picture and it will take you to that post.

Didn't it turn out cute? I really like the colors. This is how it looks in my classroom library.

 

#4

I am trying to decide if I want to start a TpT store for myself. Here is one item that I remade from a friends idea. We each had student teachers and we were gradually taking our classrooms back and having a hard time remember what needed to be done each morning. This was a great reminder that I had on my board to make sure that everything was ready for the day.



I am trying to figure out how to do Google Doc or another Google site that Ladybug Teacher Files had a tutorial on and I am having NO LUCK getting it attached. Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks

well, I am off to get ready for Vacation Bible School this week. Very exciting time to see children singing and learning about God.

Until Next Time,

       Happy Blogging

                Tammy

Hurricane Kansas

This is going to be a quick post because I am very tired from today's activities.  We had the biggest storm that I have seen while living here in Pretty Prairie.  Rain, Hail and 100 mph winds. I felt like I was watching one of my videos for my weather unit in school about Hurricanes.  Here are a few pictures of what we had to clean up today. (Tree limbs, branches and leaves, leaves, leaves.)


This is our porch when the storm was halfway through.

During the storm, the tree across the street was uprooted.

Part of our tree in the front yard was on the sidewalk. Our pool was still standing though. :)

This was our neighbors trampoline and it was a block away from its house.

Our neighbors huge tree was uprooted.

This car was actually on the other side of Main Street and the wind blew it across the street and the steakhouses roof came off and crashed into the building and car.

Another neighbors tree.

Roof metal hanging from the powerlines.

It was a crazy day of clean up around my town. It was like being in a tornado but no houses were torn down.  Anyway, I am off to get some sleep because my body is extremely tired.

Until Next Time,
         Happy Blogging
                     Tammy

R . . . E . . . A . . . D

I am nearing the end of my summer break. I have two and a half weeks left so I am working hard on finishing up my projects that I wanted to do this summer but didn't do or complete yet because of other things that popped up.

 

 I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for this Mondays post.  My Monday Made It was an inspiration that I found on Pinterest from The First Grade Parade.

 

 I had the letters READ up last year over my tree but I just put the letters on the wall.

. . . BORING . . .
so when I saw this picture, I thought, "I can do that". So here is what I did.

I went to Hobbly Lobby and bought the wooden shapes and the ribbon. I had the paint from painting my bulletin boards and I had the letters from last year.

I painted each of the wooden shapes.

Tacked on the ribbon using small tacks.

This is what it looked like with ribbon on.

I placed the letters on using glue dots. I don't like my letters always being straight so I made each letter a little crooked.

I made the bows using a tutorial off of Pinterest also. It took me awhile with the bows. Never made bows before. I think they turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. (FYI ~ the bows are not glued to the ribbon yet)

Final piece was to put it up in my Classroom Library. I really love how it turned out and my tree is still there. It is right beside it on the left.  I stapled the ribbon to the wall and then I hot glued the bows on.  Put a few butterflies and bird's around the read sign and it will be finished.

 

I also remade my "sharp pencils" and "need sharpened" cans using my rooms colors. Here is a before and after pic.



 I really like how these turned out too.

I hope you enjoyed reading my post today.  Hop over to Monday Made It and see what other people are creating and maybe you will get inspired to make something.

 

Until Next Time,

         Happy Blogging,

                    Tammy



Harvest is OVER!

Well, it has been a long three weeks and I wish I could say that some of it was vacation time but it was not.  Harvest went very well here in the "fly over state" of Kansas. I am very glad that it is over. It was very longggg hourrrrssss with very little sleep. I've said this before and I will say it again,

"GOD BLESS FARMERS".

I don't know how they do it every single day going up and down those fields. Three weeks was good enough for me.







Some of you were interested about what we do during harvest so I took my camera and clicked some pictures as we worked. Here we go . . .


This is where it all begins in the morning around 8:00 am. We get the Semi's on the road
with the wheat and we head out to the fields to service the combines and trackers.
 

We made it to the first wheat field.



My daughter works for the same farmer also. She and Cody are fueling up the
combines and trackers and checking the oil levels.
 

This is me and my job is cleaning the windows of the combines and trackers.
Fun!! Fun!!
 

This is my view from the cab of the combine.
 

Here is another view from the combine. This is called the header and it
brings the wheat into the cutters and then it goes into the combine.
 

Once the combine is full of wheat, the trackers come by while we continue
cutting wheat and we empty our wheat into their carts.  Then the carts go
to the semi's to fill them.
 

This is what it looks like far away.
 

Here's a night view for you. We would work until around 10:30 and leave for
home around 11:00 pm.

There it is . . . This was my life for the last three weeks.  So glad it is over and I can go back to thinking about school since there is only three weeks before we start here in Kansas. Time is going very fast.

 

Until Next Time,

         Happy Blogging

Harvest Has Begun

As you may know, I live in one of the

"fly over states"

and we have begun harvesting the wheat in our fields.

 

It is an all day job and then some. I will leave in the morning around 8:00 and be back home around 11:00 or 12:00 midnight. We cut as much wheat as we can in a day and it makes for long hours of going up and down fields but I wouldn't change it for anything.

With that being said, I probably won't be on the computer blog hopping or writing many posts for these next two weeks. I come home very tired and smelly. I shower and go right to bed to wake up the next morning and do it all over again.

I LOVE these two weeks in the summer.

Here is a picture of us last year working in the fields. I drive the combine that harvests the wheat so I can't make any mistakes.

 

I am in the middle.

This is one of my favorite pictures of us. I hope everyone has a fabulous week.

Take Care.

Until Next Time,

          Happy Blogging

Throwback Thursday ~ Quarterly Parties

I am so excited about joining First Grade Parade's Throwback Thursday Linky. 

I don't have a very long list of archives so I hope that I can find something that might interest other bloggers in blogland.

 

I have already been thinking about my Classroom Management with my quarterly parties for next year since I will be moving to another building.  Since it is summer, I have not been able to meet with my new teammates yet so I am not sure what they have organized already for our grade level. I am very excited about sharing my idea with the quarterly parties and I hope that they will like it too.

So here is my original post from October 28, 2012.   Enjoy!!

***********************************************************************************************I I can not believe how fast

October

has flown. I have so many things to post so I am hoping to keep them in order so not to confuse people each day. The end of our first quarter of school was October 10. It has been so much fun working with my set of "SMARTIES" this year. They are such a great group of students but some need some work on learning how to be responsible and respectful to others. They are great with me in the classroom but when they leave my room, a few think the rules don't apply to them anymore. I am sure that some of the teachers and parents out there know what I am talking about. Anyway, our second grade team decided last year that we would have Quarterly Parties for those students that showed responsibility and respect throughout the school day, including the bus rides to school and home. Here were the requirements for them making it to the party.

· Homework was completed (80%) for the whole quarter.

· 80% behavior in the classroom and specials.

· NO office referrals

· In class assignments were turned in on time and done to the best of their ability.

What a difference we saw with homework being turned in, behavior in specials improving and no office referrals. SO on October 10, 2012 we had our first quarterly party of the year.

Out of my 17 students that I have in class, only 3 of my students could not participate in the activities. It is a hard thing to have them miss this fun day (and sometimes it is hard on the parents too) but on the other hand it is a good life lesson. They need to learn that there are consequences for the actions that they choose. I will tell you that two of the students who missed the party this last time are on track to make it to the next party. They are both working really hard at getting their homework turned in. :) So anyway, that is how we decide who gets to come and who does not. On with the show!!!

As the students come into the classroom, the music from ToyStory was playing in the background. Some of the students dressed up as cowgirls and cowboys for the day and others wore their normal clothes which was perfectly fine. As we started our day, the students made their own cowboy hats. They cut them out and decorated them and then we fit them around their heads with cut sentence strips. They looked adorable on them.

As the students come into the classroom, the music from ToyStory was playing in the background. Some of the students dressed up as cowgirls and cowboys for the day and others wore their normal clothes which was perfectly fine. As we started our day, the students made their own cowboy hats. They cut them out and decorated them and then we fit them around their heads with cut sentence strips. They looked adorable on them.



After we were done making our hats (about 30 minutes), we headed outside for the hoedown activities. We had three stations that the children would participate in:

1) Barrel Racing

2) Steer Roping
3) Hay Hauling

Each station was about 30 minutes long. We were at the Barrel Racing first. Each student was able to pick the color horse they wanted to ride. I was the official time keeper. I showed the students how to go around the barrels and how to follow the spray painted lines so that they did not get any points taken off their time for going the wrong way. What fun! The student with the fastest time won a belt buckle from Pretty Prairie's Largest Night Rodeo. Here are some fun pics of the students.

This is me giving instructions for the barrel racing.

 

Isaiah was the winner of the Barrel Racing.

After that event, we went to Roping Steers. This was fun to watch because none of my students this year have ever swung a lasso before. Last year, I had a couple of boys who did very well and helped the other students learn how to do it. It was a learning experience for them all this year.
  

 

Angel was the only student who roped the steer!

The last station that we had was the Hay Hauling activities. I put my class into two teams and they had to move the hay bales from one side to the other side. It was kind of like a relay race. They had so much fun cheering each other on.

We were busy, busy, busy that morning. The students went to lunch. After lunch, we started making our homemade Rootbeer. That was a lot of fun and a little eerie. These are my teammates. They made the homemade rootbeer and I took the pictures. It was very good and the dry ice made it even better. The kids loved it.

After making the rootbeer, we had to let it brew for about 30 minutes so the students moved all the desks and put down their sleeping bags or blankets and pillows and we began watching the movie "Toy Story 2". The kids were so ready to relax and eat some popcorn. They so deserved this day.

We are now working on the second quarter of school and last year we did a quarterly party with The Polar Express. This year we decided not to do that because kindergarten and first grade did the movie. We are working on having a quarterly party with a Grinch Theme. We are so excited about that. If you have any ideas or know of a site that has great ideas, pass it along to me. We already have an adult costume for picture taking. Can't wait!!

What do you do to encourage your students to do their homework or to be good citizens outside your classroom? I was going to try and do a Linky Party but after reading the information about it, I'm not sure I understand how to do it yet. So if anyone would like to email me how to do a Linky that would be easy to understand, that would be fabulous. Thanks so much!

******************************************************************************************************

If you would like to link up with a Throwback from the past, go to First Grade Parade and share.  Thanks so much for reading and leaving a comment. We all love hearing from other teachers. J

Until Next Time,

         Happy Blogging